Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted SouthWm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2005 M05 2 - 272 pages Flannery O'Connor was only the second twentieth-century writer (after William Faulkner) to have her work collected for the Library of America, the definitive edition of American authors. Fifty years after her death, O'Connor's fiction still retains its original power and pertinence. For those who know nothing of O'Connor and her work, this study by Ralph C. Wood offers one of the finest introductions available. For those looking to deepen their appreciation of this literary icon, it breaks important new ground. Unique to Wood's approach is his concern to show how O'Connor's stories, novels, and essays impinge on America's cultural and ecclesial condition. He uses O'Connor's work as a window onto its own regional and religious ethos. Indeed, he argues here that O'Connor's fiction has lasting, even universal, significance precisely because it is rooted in the confessional witness of her Roman Catholicism and in the Christ-haunted character of the American South. According to Wood, it is this O'Connor -- the believer and the Southerner -- who helps us at once to confront the hardest cultural questions and to propose the profoundest religious answers to them. His book is thus far more than a critical analysis of O'Connor's writing; in fact, it is principally devoted to cultural and theological criticism by way of O'Connor's searing insights into our time and place. These are some of the engaging moral and religious questions that Wood explores: the role of religious fundamentalism in American culture and in relation to both Protestant liberalism and Roman Catholicism; the practice of racial slavery and its continuing legacy in the literature and religion of the South; the debate over Southern identity, especially whether it is a culture rooted in ancient or modern values; the place of preaching and the sacraments in secular society and dying Christendom; and the lure of nihilism in contemporary American culture. Splendidly illuminating both O'Connor herself and the American mind, Wood's Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South will inform and fascinate a wide range of readers, from lovers of literature to those seriously engaged with religious history, cultural analysis, or the American South. |
From inside the book
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Page 1
... evil . In a letter she wrote just a month later to the same correspondent , O'Connor called this evil by its rightful name , and she rightly saw it as the pandemic of our age : " [ I ] f you live today you breathe in nihilism . In or ...
... evil . In a letter she wrote just a month later to the same correspondent , O'Connor called this evil by its rightful name , and she rightly saw it as the pandemic of our age : " [ I ] f you live today you breathe in nihilism . In or ...
Page 2
... evil not in some remote ethereal realm , nor in her circumambient culture alone , but also in the " one holy catholic and apostolic church . " She confessed that the church's feeble and often noxious witness causes Christians as much ...
... evil not in some remote ethereal realm , nor in her circumambient culture alone , but also in the " one holy catholic and apostolic church . " She confessed that the church's feeble and often noxious witness causes Christians as much ...
Page 9
... evil from a posture of consensus from which we agree to deplore social evils , it is now the con- sensus itself and the posture which are called into question.' O'Connor's stories are stark and often grotesque because they cast doubt on ...
... evil from a posture of consensus from which we agree to deplore social evils , it is now the con- sensus itself and the posture which are called into question.' O'Connor's stories are stark and often grotesque because they cast doubt on ...
Page 10
... evil , both help and destruction , both life and death . It does , of course , throw a shadow . We cannot overlook or ignore this aspect of the matter . In itself , however , it is light and not darkness . We cannot , therefore , speak ...
... evil , both help and destruction , both life and death . It does , of course , throw a shadow . We cannot overlook or ignore this aspect of the matter . In itself , however , it is light and not darkness . We cannot , therefore , speak ...
Page 11
... evil institution . Yet it proved to be a blessed defeat . As we shall see , the South won the spiritual war by retaining its truest legacy , not the her- itage of slavery and segregation and discrimination , but the Bible - centered and ...
... evil institution . Yet it proved to be a blessed defeat . As we shall see , the South won the spiritual war by retaining its truest legacy , not the her- itage of slavery and segregation and discrimination , but the Bible - centered and ...
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Common terms and phrases
Agrarians Allen Tate American atheist baptism become believe Bible biblical Bishop called Catholic character child Christ Christ-haunted Christian church civil confessed culture dead death declared deny discern divine Donald Davidson Eugene Genovese evil faith final Flannery O'Connor fundamentalists Genovese Georgia God's gospel grace H. L. Mencken Hulga human Ibid Jesus John Karl Barth letter liberal literary live Lord Lucette manners Mason Tarwater means Milledgeville Misfit modern moral Motes mother mystery Nelson never Nigger nihilism nihilist Parker person preacher preaching Press prophet Protestant Quoted race racial racist Rayber redemption refuses regard Reinhold Niebuhr religion religious reveals sacramental salvation Sarah Ruth secular sense sinful slavery slaves social soul South Southern spiritual story suffering summons Tarwater Tarwater's Tate's theological things tion tradition truth University vision vocation voice W. H. Auden Walker Percy wants Wise Blood woman Word writer York Young Tarwater